Cherry Picking Tickets in Customer Service

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It’s frustrating, it’s common, and it plagues customer service teams of all sizes: cherry-picking tickets.

What is cherry-picking tickets in customer service?

Ticket cherry-picking occurs when a customer service teammate deviates from the usual ticket-routing process and instead selects a different ticket from the queue to work on that would not have otherwise been assigned to them.

Causes of Cherry Picking Tickets

Completions-based Performance Measurement

Some customer service teams base their performance metrics on the number of tickets completed per teammate. With this model, it’s tempting to go after (cherry-pick) the customer issues that take the least amount of time to resolve with the tools at hand. Sadly, this can lead to cascading issues: fellow teammates are left to handle more complex customer issues, and true performance is skewed in favor of completions, not customer satisfaction, purchases, or other meaningful metrics.

Insufficient onboarding

From rapidly-growing businesses onboarding their first CX teammates to brands that have to staff up for holiday surges, onboarding can quickly fall to the wayside or be rushed through. Compounded by ticket backlogs and increasing pressure to help customers, the urge to cherry-pick tickets is often a symptom of inadequate training to handle specific types of customer issues.

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Problems with Cherry Picking Tickets

Unhappy customers

It’s inevitable: not all of your customers will have quick, easy issues to resolve. When CX teammates start to cherry-pick tickets, avoiding those more complex, frustration-filled requests, customers can be left in the lurch for days or even weeks without a resolution. The truth is, digital brands have nowhere to hide! Customers who go unanswered will make their experiences known online, sharing details of their problems on social media or on forums where other potential customers are discussing your brand. If left unanswered by support teams, a single unhappy, vocal customer can cost you future customers.

Wondering how Gladly stacks up against ticket-based CX platforms? Start here.

• Zendesk and Gladly Comparison
• Gorgias and Gladly Comparison
• Genesys and Gladly Comparison

Team burnout

Smart brands know how crucial it is to have a well-trained, enthusiastic customer service team. They’re your first line of interaction–or defense–when customers reach out with suggestions, questions, or problems. But burnout is real, especially in the U.S. As of January 2022, 4.3 million people have quit their jobs, and these workers have plenty of options, given the high labor demand as COVID-19 restrictions ease in the States. Many factors can contribute to burnout in customer service: repetitive multitasking, insufficient tooling, unhappy customers, and blockers preventing skill development. Cherry-picking tickets leaves teams divided and left to sort through overlooked customer issues.

Gladly’s solution: People Match

Gladly saw an opportunity to turn cherry picking on its head by using the base upside–that agents become familiar with solving specific sets of customer issues–to a team’s advantage.

With People Match, a feature of Gladly’s platform, customers are routed to the best customer service teammate to help based on their unique history, situation, or needs.​ It ensures that the right person on your team is assigned to the job.​

Next, we’ll detail three key ways you can use People Match to route service issues to the right teammate.

Customer Status or Sentiment Routing

Customers can be routed by their status (say, a VIP customer) or their sentiment (a disgruntled shopper who needs special attention) to the teammate best equipped to handle the scenario.

Customer Scenario Routing

Any customer service professional knows how important context is and the overall urgency of the customer’s request. For example, if they have a flight cancellation or an abandoned cart with items they meant to purchase.

Customer Needs Routing

People Match helps specific skills or knowledge on a customer service team to really shine. If you have a customer service teammate who speaks Spanish or has become the go-to team expert in billing, People Match allows customers with those needs to be routed to the most skilled teammates in those areas.

Say Goodbye to Cherry Picking with Gladly

Gladly is a customer service platform for digitally-focused B2C companies who want to maximize the lifetime value of their customers. Unlike the legacy approach to customer service software, designed around a ticket or case to enable workflows, Gladly enables radically personal customer service centered around people to sustain customer loyalty and drive more revenue.

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